The ghawwas' appearance is a horrible combination of prehistoric fish, gigantic humanoid, and shark. While it has the basic frame of a humanoid its skin has the shiny texture of fish scales and along many of its limbs and joints protrude fins, giving it a close resemblance to some sort of tropical fish. From its back protrudes a long tail topped with a venomous barb and it often wields a large, cruel barbed spear that further adds to its intimidating appearance. The ghawwas' head is flanked on each side by a pair of brightly coloured fins and topped with a set of coral-like horns. Beneath this coral crown sits the ghawwas' small, piercing, evil-looking red eyes and beneath them sits its mouth, a yawning chasm filled with large, backwards-curving teeth that prevent their prey from escaping.[1] Ghawwas tower over most mortals, standing around twelve feet tall and weighing well over a thousand pounds.[2]

Ghawwas originally, like all div, come from the evil plane of Abaddon. There they dwell in a poisonous sea where, without mortals to directly torment, they focus on creating new and even more deadly poisons. On the Material Plane ghawwas tend to dwell in the inky depths of the ocean, ideally beneath busy shipping lanes so that they are never short of mortals to torment. Ghawwas do not just attack air-breathing mortals and show even more hatred to water-breathing mortals like merfolk, sahuagin, and sea elves, who they consider a threat to their realm. Despite being aquatic ghawwas can easily survive on land, though they tend to find the two-dimensional nature of land movement very frustrating. Still, some ghawwas make their home on land, some gaining particular enjoyment from wandering the deserts drying up isolated oases that the desert dwellers rely on for drinking water.[2]

Ghawwas, as outsiders, have no real need of food or water, but ghawwas none the less enjoy devouring the bone marrow of their opponents. On Abaddon the ghawwas are used as servants by their more intelligent fiendish masters. They serve as vicious warriors, strong guardians, or crafty aquatic infiltrators. On the Material Plane ghawwas tend to act like sadistic hunters, usually going after a single ship. Rather than attacking to destroy ghawwas tend to play games. In this situation ghawwas slash sails, poison sailors, and steal cargo, sometimes they even try to drive the crew insane, appearing only to a single crew member before disappearing beneath the waves and feasting on the chaos this creates. Like all div the ghawwas posses an esoteric weakness: they hate the sound of bells. The thick, metallic sound of ringing bells fills ghawwas with great unease. Unfortunately they are just as likely to find and destroy the source of the ringing as they are to flee from it.[2]